Author's Notes and disclaimer: Obviously, I was not sane when I wrote this, but I was very giddy at the time. No spoilers that I'm aware of. I don't own any of this either. Rightful owners are Josephson Entertainment and Far Field Productions in association with 20th Century Fox Television. More disclaimers at the end.

P is for Purple

Dr. Temperance Brennan slid her access card through the security reader before she climbed the steps to the Medico-Legal Lab, her separate lab in the Jeffersonian Institute where only a select few individuals were allowed access. Those select few, minus one, were already gathered around a table, involved in a conversation. Several bones were scattered on the work surface, but the topic of their discussion was not about the fragments of the human remains.

"What's going on?" she inquired, noticing that no one had their lab coats on yet, which immediately caused her to fret that someone had broken into her sanctuary and disrupted her new project.

Angela Montenegro picked up a pressed, clean lab coat from across one of the backs of a chair. "Here. This is yours," she said smugly.

"Why are our lab coats purple? What happened to the blue ones?" Temperance queried as she began to breathe a little easier, knowing her project had not been tampered with.

"You call this purple? This is like iridescent violet." Angela's initial laughter turned into a low grumble.

"Technically," Dr. Jack Hodgins interrupted, looking at Temperance, "our coats were royal, not just plain blue." He raised a challenging eyebrow and then continued, "Besides, we will look like a cluster of four grapes on a vine with this table as the stem."

Rolling her eyes at Jack's meticulousness, Angela countered his grape explanation and replied, "I've always been more partial to plums actually."

Temperance's young assistant suddenly looked very childlike and his intellectual manner left him as he enthusiastically blurted out, "I know! I know! How about Barney? We can all be look-alike Barneys!"

"Barney?!?" the other three members of the Jeffersonian simultaneously uttered, staring at Zack Addy.

"Who's Barney?" Temperance asked warily, unsure if she wanted to know the answer.

"The big, purple dinosaur that skips and jumps and tells all the little kiddies that he loves them," a voice spoke, startling the small group with their backs to him. A faint beep signaled that the security card had been swiped, and he was granted access.

The four Jeffersonian employees, or squints as they were sometimes called, all turned around and watched FBI Agent Seeley Booth's lips form an unabashed smile before Zack almost jumped for joy as he broke out into a rendition of the theme song from the children's show.

Barney is a dinosaur from our imagination.
And when he's tall, he's what we call a dinosaur sensation.

Everyone groaned, and Temperance shook her head, heading for the steps to exit the lab.

"Where you going?" Seeley asked, grabbing a hold of her arm as she passed him. His eyes twinkled mischievously.

"Anywhere but here," Temperance rejoined quickly, pausing as his strong hand halted her. She wrenched it free and continued her escape.

"Wait for me," Seeley hollered, looking back at Zack and Angela, who had joined Zack in singing after a brief argument over the next few lines of the song.

Barney's friends are big and small. They come from lots of places.
After school, they meet to play and sing with happy faces.

"You coming?" he asked Jack.

Jack didn't even bother to verbally answer Seeley. He skirted around his two singing co-workers and descended the steps two at a time.

Seeley laughed and followed the two doctors. Catching up to Temperance, he leaned in and whispered in her ear. "It could be worse. They could be singing Barney's closing lullaby."

"I'm afraid to ask what that is," she remarked fearfully.

With that same glimmer in his brown eyes, he softly cooed the words:

I love you. You love me. We're a happy family.
With a great big hug and a kiss from me to you. Won't you say you love me too?

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Ending Notes: I didn't want to spoil the surprise in the above notes, but I have to disclaim now that I do not own Barney nor the lyrics of the songs. Barney is trademark registered and property of Lyons Partnership, LP. I have no clue, who wrote the lyrics to the songs, but I found both as I googled on "Barney's Greatest Hits: The Early Years". Capitol records released it in 2000. No, I did not recite the lyrics from memory. I had to listen to the little snippets. Yes, I remember watching the show, but as entertainment for the young children for whom I baby-sat for years and years ago.

Additionally, I am not poking fun at the purple dinosaur, but the prompt word (purple) and a really fun look into Zack's personality just begged for this to be written. I love Zack. He is so cute and innocent.